


something to hold onto

by natromanoffs



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Deckerstar - Freeform, F/M, I'm very emotional, mostly just focused on chloe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natromanoffs/pseuds/natromanoffs
Summary: (post s4 finale)Lucifer leaves, and Chloe's left devastated.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	something to hold onto

**Author's Note:**

> just a short little thing i wrote a while ago after watching the s4 finale. i'm always gonna be emo over that finale tbh. title is a lyric from 'the anchor' by bastille.

After Lucifer leaves, Chloe doesn’t go into work. She doesn’t call ahead to let them know she won’t be there. She just wakes up the morning after he leaves and realizes there’s no way she’s going to be able to get out of bed, let alone spend the day working. 

She rubs her eyes, and notices that they’re awfully swollen. She remembers, then, that she fell asleep crying. She can only ever remember crying herself to sleep when she was a little kid. Her head hurts like hell, ten times worse than a hangover. She sleeps most of the day away.

The second day post-Lucifer she manages to get out of bed. She showers, which is progress, but of course she breaks down crying as soon as the water hits her. She tries to eat, but it turns out she’s lost her appetite.

On the third and final day of Chloe’s break from work, she strategizes. She realizes she has multiple options: she could tell her coworkers the truth, a planned out lie, or a vague lie. She knows that Lucifer was right -- no one will believe the truth, at least not without proof, which she doesn’t have. So that eliminates one option. She could tell them something made-up: Lucifer’s on vacation, he had a family emergency, etc. But that would be too complex, she’d have to sort out the details, and when he didn’t show up after a few weeks people would start asking questions. So she settles on the easier option, a vague lie.

On Thursday morning, Chloe makes it through her shower without crying. She’s able to get down three bites of toast. It’s great progress, but her stomach feels queasy as she heads to work. She’d grabbed the bullet necklace from her jewelry box this morning, putting it on as some sort of comfort. It’s not enough, but still she finds herself running her fingers over it as she enters the precinct. 

No one really bats an eye when Chloe tells them she doesn’t know where Lucifer is. It’s not an uncommon occurrence. Lucifer’s made a habit of disappearing for weeks on end to sort things out and then returning without warning. It makes sense that no one would take note of this disappearance, but the fact that no one seems to care makes Chloe want to yell. If only she could tell them the truth. It might not make it easier, but at least she wouldn’t be the only one feeling deserted.

It’s a few more days before she talks to Maze about it. Maze gets worked up immediately, and begins coming up with ideas and plans on how to get him back. They tell Amenadiel and Linda too, so now there’s a small group working to bring him back. Getting Lucifer back is what Chloe wants most right now, yet she feels herself drifting during their brainstorming meetings. 

Chloe hadn’t realized how important that goddamn bullet necklace would be to her, but right now it means everything. When she finds her head getting cloudy when Maze and the others are trying to brainstorm plans, she’ll lay a finger on the bullet and remember who she’s doing this for.

When Ella rolls her eyes and cracks a joke about Lucifer “dipping for the third time this year,” Chloe turns the bullet between her fingers and is able to keep her emotions even until she’s got a moment to herself.

But it’s not enough. When Trixie asks her, a few weeks after Lucifer leaves, when he’s going to come back, Chloe can only respond with “I don’t know” and bite back the tears.

When multiple months pass, and everyone starts to get a little worried, Chloe just shrugs, as if she’s just as clueless as the rest of them. She spends a lot more time shutting herself in the bathroom at work.

She’s become a lot better at taking care of herself as the weeks have gone by. She’s working, eating, showering, taking care of Trixie, and checking off all the items on her to-do lists. Sleep, however, has taken a toll. She’s spending many nights lying awake in the dark, hand clasped around the bullet, eyes wide open and spilling with tears. When she does get to sleep, it’s never quite right. She wakes up at even the slightest sounds now. Images of Lucifer and memories of him leaving muddy her sleep so that she almost always wakes up with him on her brain and a furrow between her brows.

She knows why he did it, but she still feels stranded. He’s been a part of her life for years now, what is she supposed to do without him? It’s like a piece of her has been ripped away. Everywhere she goes, everything she sees reminds her of him, it’s all connected. Even worse, she’s not sure how he’s doing down there. Is he in pain? Has he become someone different, or rather something different? Has he forgotten her?

Though she knows Maze and the group are “working on it,” they’ve been working on it for months now, to no avail. There’s no telling when, or if, he’ll ever come back, and that’s the thought that wraps itself around her brain.

But she has to have hope. A year after his disappearance, it’s rare to have hope at all, but she tries to find little glimpses and pieces and hold on to them. It’s all she can do at this point. By now, everyone’s sort of realized Lucifer’s gone, but they chalk it up to his impulsive personality rather than worrying about him. Maze, Linda, and Amenadiel obviously are a lot more worried, but they’ve also got their hands full raising Charlie, so they’re not ruminating to the level Chloe is. There’s hardly a moment, waking or otherwise, when she isn’t thinking about him. 

Maze has been running Lux ever since Lucifer left, though she still lives with Linda and Amenadiel so that she can be involved in Charlie’s life. This means that the upper floor of the building is often left empty. Chloe tries her best to stay away, knowing she’ll just wallow if she goes there. She does grab a couple of shirts, a few weeks after Lucifer leaves, just so that she’ll have a little something more to hold onto. She sleeps in them and it’s almost like sleeping next to him, something she never really got to consistently do. Oh, what she would do to have a normal life, where Lucifer was a normal man. The things she would give up to wake up next to him. But, instead, she wraps herself in his shirts, breathes in the scent of him, and lets herself wish sometimes. 

Occasionally, when things get really bad, she’ll stay at his place. Only when Trixie is away with Dan and when she knows no one will be affected by her doing so. She’ll lie on his couch and sleep in his bed and it’s a bit like being with him again. She tries to keep these visits to a minimum. Knows that if she lets herself come here often, she’ll never leave. But sometimes, she’ll allow herself a night. Like the time when Dan gets shot and she thinks he might lose him, and the day when Ella says with a gasp, “What if Lucifer’s dead?” But the visits are few and far between.

Today, though, on the one year anniversary of him leaving, it feels only right to come to his place. She lights some candles and sits on the balcony, trying to make a bit of a moment out of it. She tries talking to him, though she knows there’s no way in hell he can hear her. But her voice breaks only a minute in, and soon she’s just sitting there sobbing. 

It’s been a year. A full year without him, and they’re no closer to getting him back. She feels a wave of desperation come over her -- What if they never find him? What if this is just her life now? What if she just needs to fucking move on because he’s never coming back? What if --

No. She can’t allow herself to think like that. She’s beginning to spiral, and if she gets too deep she’s not sure she’ll be able to pull herself out. So. She takes a deep breath, focusing on the smell of the candles - a warm, woody scent. She turns the bullet between her fingers. It’s been a year since he disappeared, but you know what? Chloe’s going to find a way to bring him back. She has hope.


End file.
